Google Ads is rolling out a setting that lets advertisers label image and video creatives as generated or edited with AI, turning a previously manual compliance task into an account-level rule. The change matters because new regulations in the European Union, India, and New York require disclosure, and the platform now handles much of that burden automatically.
What the setting does
The labeling option reaches five Google ad products - Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Campaign Manager 360, Merchant Center, and Ads Editor - through July. Once an asset is marked as AI-created or edited, the disclosure appears in the global "How this ad was made" panel, accessible via the three-dot menu on Search, YouTube, and Discover. In the three jurisdictions with active rules, the disclosure goes further: ads show a visible overlay on the creative itself, not just a backend record.
Google launched the "How this ad was made" panel on July 9, and the new setting extends it so advertisers don't have to tag every asset individually. The setting is a standing rule that Google enforces at serving time.
Where advertisers set it
Advertisers manage labels from the Asset library, where a new "AI label" status column shows each asset's designation. They can label assets during campaign creation when reviewing creatives, change the designation on existing assets, or apply their own label with outside design tools without violating Google's rules against text overlays. The controls reached accounts before the documentation was published, as Search Engine Land reported when a PPC specialist spotted the live column across Google Ads, Merchant Center, and Ads Editor.
Google can label on your behalf
The setting is not entirely in the advertiser's hands. Google says it may apply labels itself in regions where it is legally required, or when it receives signals from other platforms. Assets produced through its fully automated creative features can be labeled on the advertiser's behalf, and those labels cannot be overwritten. Google also embeds machine-readable provenance data - SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata - in every image and video its own tools generate.
Google cautions that turning on the setting does not by itself guarantee compliance with any regulation and advises advertisers to seek legal guidance. The rollout follows similar moves from Meta, which added updated disclosure tags for AI-generated ads in July, and TikTok, which introduced its own AI ad-disclosure rules.
Why this matters for creatives
For creative teams producing ads across multiple markets, the account-level setting eliminates the overhead of tracking individual asset labels. The visible overlay in regulated regions means creative decisions about placement and design must now account for the presence of a disclosure badge. AI for Creatives courses can help teams build the skills to design assets that work with these new platform requirements, not around them. When Google may auto-label assets without the option to remove the label, the safest path is to treat every AI-assisted asset as potentially carrying a disclosure - and to design accordingly.
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